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It's kind of a shame that Samsung wasn't ready to product a 32nm A5X for the new iPad. While it's obvious that most of the battery life "issues" come from the amount of power the backlight consumes, a cooler running SoC would have been much appreciated.Reply

I doubt Apple would risk an entirely new SoC on an unproven process. If the 32nm A5 had been delayed because of process issues they could just keep manufacturing 45nm A5s and shipping iPad 2s. If a 32nm A5X is delayed, you slip the iPad 3.Reply

dagamer34, the backlighting in the new iPad consumes the same amount as any other screen in any other iPad. I assume what you are trying to say is the screen is where most power consumption is used, which is correct, and the case with almost all mobile devices.

The new iPad does need a die shrink, though, that's for sure. The GPU portion of the A5X consumes around 30% of the battery alone when driving full resolution graphics, which is why it has 30% less battery life than the iPad 2.Reply

The display has 4x as many pixels > which means it has 4x as much pixel wiring > which absorbs 4x as much of the backlight as older ipad display wiring > which means the backlight has to be brighter > which uses more power.Reply

It is not the backlight that is making the huge difference in power draw. it is the quad-core gpu that is working 4 times harder than the dual-core gpu it replaced. all backlighting is done via edge-lighting, and the delta in power consumption to step up to a marginally brighter output is negligible considering the doubling of the battery capacity (doubly especial since LEDs are already pretty efficient). If you have ever taken apart laptop LCD screens you would understand.Reply

There is a more beefy backlight for the reason ozone said, go look at the review of the 3rd gen iPad and you'll see how large an effect bumping up the brightness causes compared to in previous iPads.Another way to see this is by looking at the numbers in this review where power use between the iPad 3,1 2,1 and 2,4 are compared. In H.264 playback the GPU and CPU are both doing essentially nothing so it isolates the screen fairly effectively. At the same brightness iPad 3,1 uses 4.9W, iPad 2,1 uses 2.4W and iPad 2,4 uses 2.2W. This shows that the display uses around 2.5W more power at the chosen brightness level. Looking at the same chart the GPU appears to be pulling about 2W extra (assuming moonbat works the CPU as hard as infinity blade 2).Reply

Unfortunately, if you bought iPad 2 after iCloud launched, you'll get iCloud logo on the box anyway. Late 2011 production to be exact. Since I have 2 different iPad 2, one I bought on April, and another one after 4S launched, the later has iCloud logo.Reply

I just used Battery Life Pro to find out my iPad is a 2,4. Battery Life Pro is free and has a button with the picture of a computer chip on it. Touch that and then go to System Info and you have the informaiton. Hope this helps.Reply

Go to the Settings icon, General, Info, Diagnosis and Usage, Dianosis and Usage, and open one of the .plist files. In the second or third line is the model number. Be awere, I translated the menu items from the Dutch language so the menu items could be labeled otherwise in English.Reply

For Apple, that's a silly reason, since they make far more money off of selling their products than they would ever get from patents and Samsung is a rock solid supplier going as far back as the original iPhone.

They may want some diversity, but because Samsung and Apple actually need each other, they aren't going to stupidly turn down each other's business. Note that while their lawyers might fight, shareholders would NOT be happy with the amount of lost business/production of product.Reply

And they, in fact, succeded in doing it in Germany, thanks to the reasonable judge, Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann. Now Germans get "N" version of 10.1, with silly looking ears. (no ears design is patented, you know)Reply

The issue is not fighting between Apple and Samsung --- there's a minor issue that they are already both trying to calm down and resolve.

The real issue is that any responsible company always has a plan B in place, just in case something unexpected happens. Earthquake in Korea? Typhoon in Taiwan? Samsung get stuck trying to get below 32nm but TSMC make fine progress? et etcReply

It's explained in the article but they're using IPad 2,4 to refer to the newer IPad 2 that are being produced with a different SOC. That's all. So more or less it is just a revision of the older IPad 2.Reply

My extremely wild guess is that the dedicated H.264 decoder is far more power efficient than the energy it takes to render the home screen (assuming that new frames are rendered even if the screen doesn't change, if not, my theory holds no water).Reply

It would also help to explain why video playback allows for the iPad to last so long. It doesn't really require the CPU or GPU since it's all being taken care of by the dedicated hardware decoder.Reply

Was video testing done full screen or letterboxed? Assuming it was done letterboxed, is it possible that backlighting of the display can be selectively turned off near the top and bottom of the screen? That would definitely save power.

It'd be easy enough to test. Just run the test full screen and see if the playback time changes.Reply

Not so sure the foundry part is working all that well,they didn't had 32nm for the ipad 3 and they had to cut a few corners without it (huge battery- ads cost , weight and bulk , way hotter , moving the ram on the other side of the PCB ).You put a positive spin on the way they transitioned to 32nm but there is no reason to keep the 32nm part low vol,and not transition all ipad 2 SKUs if Samsung has capacity and yields are good so something might not be quite there just yet. I always thought the ipad 3 on 45nm was a plan B device and Apple having A5 on 32nm this early makes it look even more so.Reply

Sure there is. Apple has no control of the volume for the A5X if they have TSMC move to a new node and try and build a new SoC on it. We have seen ALL CPU/GPU manufacturers struggle with yield when transitions to new nodes coincide with new designs. So rather risk holding back 30 million iPad 3's to a April, May, June launch, they took the risk of low yields out of the equation and stuck with 45nm.

Remember, any transition to a new node for any chip maker is typically a different Fab. And/or retooling existing Fabs. So as new 32nm Fab's come online, they won't be anywhere near the capacity of 45nm Fab's for some time.

We don't mention this much, because Intel has made this seem almost immaterial. But it is a BIG deal, and VERY expensive to ramp new nodes. Look at AMD, this side of the game would have eventually bankrupted them due to the expense of it all.Reply

It's not just the iPad 3 that would find a 32nm shrink useful. With it's higher battery consumption, it's interesting that Apple didn't decide to use the 3G iPad 2 as the 32nm A5 testbed. The 3G iPad 2 is also presumably a lower volume product than the WiFi iPad 2 which also works in it's favour as a pilot. Would an SoC change still require a new round of carrier/government radiation testing, since that would be a major disincentive?

It's good that you found the performance of the iPad2,4 unchanged. Your previous new AppleTV articles mentioned that it was coupled with a single 512MB LPDDR2 RAM die indicating only a single 32-bit channel memory configuration. It looks like the 32nm A5 in the iPad 2,4 implements the full 2x64-bit memory system.

Given the smartphone GPU performance showing in the Exynos 4412, if Apple wants to regain the GPU performance crown and hold it into 2013 when Rogue shows up, they'll probably need to be more aggressive than an up-clocked 32nm A5 in the iPhone 5. The 32nm A5 looks like a shoe-in for the next iPod Touch though.Reply

Not sure why Apple would be so conservative about rolling out the 32nm process with such a limited run for more than half of 2012, while Samsung just released their Galaxy S3 build on 32nm and ready to sell like hotcakes.Reply

Apple is selling every single iPad that they make. Potential supply constraints from a new process is a huge risk to take. Low initial yields are a common bottleneck for new products, look at what is happening with the GTX 680 right now.

They weighed the pros and cons and decided to go with what is proven, tradeoff being the absolutely massive A5X SoC.

Also note that new iPad production started late last year. Just a few months makes quite a difference, which is why we'll soon be seeing 32nm in upcoming smartphones.Reply

"Note that idle power is actually higher than video playback simply because there's more that's being driven on the display, at a higher intensity on the iOS home screen than on a dark 16:9 video."

That really doesn't make sense. This is LCD, not OLED. Displaying black/white should take about the same amount of power, because the backlight is uniform and covers the whole display. It doesn't turn off on dark areas of the screen.

Perhaps Apple cheats and turns down the brightness while a movie plays. Create a movie that has a pure white screen and measure nits...Reply

He is clearly talking about screen content, when he mentions "dark 16:9 video" which implies that power changes drastically dependent on what is displayed.

This is true for OLED screens, but untrue for LCD screens.

Also while dedicated Video decode HW offloads work from CPU/GPU, they essentially have no work to offload while idle. Really great dedicated Video decode HW could get you to idle consumption, but I don't see how it could get you below idle.

1) It is possible to have a small reduction in LCD power consumption by displaying black vs. white. The gap isn't anywhere near as dramatic as it can be on an OLED display, but it can be measurable. This alone can't explain the difference, I agree.

2) It's possible that Apple is putting the SoC into an even lower power state when a video playback scenario is triggered. Apple does quite a bit of aggressive power management so this wouldn't be too far fetched.

3) It's not clear to me if Apple is doing any localized dimming, which would have a significant impact on video decode power consumption.

I think the back-light as the largest power draw (especially in idle), is the easiest source of savings. Displaymate measured 7watts at max for the back-light alone on iPad 3 !

Easy reductions either from a simple general brightness reduction when a movie is playing, or dynamic backlight control while a movie is playing. Done right it gets some savings while being hard to notice.

I really don't think you can get a much lower power state while playing video, than while just displaying a start screen. In either case the CPU is still running, still instantly ready for touch, or sensor reactions.

"This particular iPad 2,4 sample came from Best Buy, and several attempts to find one elsewhere came up short. All indications seem to point to the iPad 2,4 being relatively rare, which makes sense considering what's inside it."

Why do all believe that smaller process nodes decreases the cost of manufacture the chips? Yes: You can fit more die candidates on a smaller process node, but the wafer price is raised for each new processor node.

Only of you own you own fabs and don't count the migration cost from one node to another node you are guaranteed a cheaper price per node shrink. Reply

Apple must have hired hundreds/maybe thousand of people working on their SoCs. PA Semi + more.To make a new tapeout/masks for exactly the same processor that is used today. I can't recall that in history.

If we believe the rumors that Apple got test wafers from TSMC june and october last year, then Apple designed at least 3 SoCs last year.A5X, A532nm and A6/ARM15.Reply

"This is nothing new, but it's always interesting to get an idea of the amount of variance Apple considers acceptable."

I think it's important to distinguish between variance that Apple considers acceptable (because it doesn't really make a difference) and variance Apple considers acceptable (because what choice do they have?)

I have complained to Apple about how irritating it is to have items that should be consistent (think of contact photos shared via iCloud for example, where the human eye is very sensitive to minute variations) appear different on iMac, iPad, MBA, and iPhone screens; and I suspect Apple is sympathetic to the problem. But screen technology is where it is today, and right now we have to accept these sorts of variations as part of the deal (different companies, different processes, lots of experimentation) that gives us really amazing quality screens for just a few hundred dollars each. Maybe in ten years we'll be in a position to deliver a single consistent screen appearance across the entire product line.

(And as for people who think complaining that contact photos look different on different screens is the height of pettiness: perhaps there's a reason that the one company that appears to care about these minor details is ALSO the one company that's making money hand over fist in this area?)Reply

Was this a comparison of a brand new iPad 2,1 to a brand new 2,4? I ask because the 15% gain seems dubious when the CPU is such a tiny portion of the overall power budget. What I do know is that over time LiON batteries lose their charge capacity, so comparing a year old iPad2 to a brand new iPad2 would show the new one as having better battery life even if they had identical internal hardware.

All of the tests were re-run on a newer but not brand new iPad 2, with very few charge cycles (< 20) on the battery. I also ran a test comparing battery life of the older iPad 2 at new vs. when tested and showed no measurable decrease in battery life (you can actually see that video playback battery life hasn't changed even compared to our original iPad 2 review). Finally, the power consumption results remove the battery from the equation and validate the difference in power.

The web browsing test is going be primarily dominated by display, followed by SoC power consumption. Keep in mind that even when the CPU cores aren't busy parsing HTML and running javascript, leakage is still a problem - Samsung is promising a ~10x decrease in leakage from the move to 32nm.

An update - I didn't feel settled with my response to you so I ran a sanity check against a brand new (never before discharged) 45nm iPad 2 and measured a 2.2% difference between the results (fairly normal for run to run variation) and our iPad 2,1 numbers here.

"There's no known way to tell whether you're getting an iPad 2,4 vs. the older iPad 2,1 without opening the box. The 2,4 unit I ended up with was made in China, ruling out manufacturing region as a way of telling. The external box looks identical, as does the device itself.

To deal with that fact, Apple is continuing to ship the original 45nm iPad 2,1 alongside the new 32nm iPad 2,4. Any hiccups in Samsung's production of the A5 and there are still more than enough iPad 2,1s to go around. The risk of moving to 32nm is effectively mitigated, while the learnings Apple gains from building the 32nm A5 will pay off later this year as Apple ramps up production of a 32nm SoC for use in the next iPhone. It's a very smart strategy, one you would expect from an experienced chip company - not a device vendor."

Sorry, but I call this bad business. It's simply bad business for one customer to get something better than another, due to luck. It's business for people to not know what it is they're getting for their money.Reply

It's the same thing Microsoft and Sony have been doing with consoles. There are literally dozens of different revisions of the 360 and PS3 with more efficient components in them, with little or no difference in the packaging. It's why Anand referenced gaming consoles in his article.Reply

had it exchanged without knowing it was the 32nm model, and now i have the normal ipad 2.. whats weird is that i checked the serial to see when they were both manufactured, and the 32nm ipad 2 was manufactured in March 2012 while the 45nm ipad 2 was manufactured in APRIL 2012. they still make the 45nm one i guess.. either that or this is a 32nm version, but geek bench is showing it as ipad 2 now with A5 processor?Reply

Part numbers are different. at least for black it is. Part number for old ipad is MC769LL/A while new is MC954LL/A. too bad i already exchanged my 32nm ipad out and got the 45nm model as a replacement because of light bleeding on the screen.. T~TReply

Went to Target, looked at what they had. They had one wifi only white iPad 2 with an ICloud logo sticker. I asked the salesperson if they are moving them pretty regularly and if they are getting in new iPad 2's every so often. he said weekly!!!! I knew my odds were improving that this one would be a recently received item. Anyway I bought it, also bought Geekbench for .99 in the AppStore. Says I got a 2,4 and man this thing is sooooo light and man I have been surfing for 1 hour and the battery went from 66% to 62%!!! That's what I really like about this iPad 2. I owned the iPad Retina and sold it to a friend in South America, and it's really really nice, but too heavy for me. A noticeable difference. What I would like to know is if this iPad 2,,4 I now own ... Is it lighter than the iPad 2,1 or not. I owned the iPad 2, 1 up till the march release and it seams slightly heavier than this one. The 16% increase in battery life, 399 price and the lightness are all deal makers for me. Local Apple store had nooooo clue what I was searching for, we're not cooperative. TARGET ROCKS. very happy man... Do it show?Reply

I purchased an iPad 2 at a Best Buy near Indianapolis tonight and specifically asked for an iPad2 with a serial number that started with DM. Most the iPads either started with DV or DR. This was a black iPad 2 made in China Part no. MC769LL/A. Ran Geekbench 2 and it confirmed iPad2,4 Thanks to everyone who put the info together to figure this out. It seems to be the real deal, or at least it worked this time!Reply

When it comes to navegating the net, this is THE BEST iPad on the market. I'm going to post my results on a couple other tests when I'm done. Real life usages of the iPad and their respective drains on the battery. So far, I'm very blown away.Reply

Went by the local Target store here in northern California. They only had two ipad 2s in stock. One white and one black. Both had the DM serial number. I bought the white one and took it home, and ran Linpack on it. And it turned out to be the 2,4. Out of the box the battery showed 84%, plugged the charger on it and brought it up to 99%. I then ran the pad for the next 7 hours, all over the web, plus all the setup stuff and email. When I finally went to bed the battery showed 68%. What great battery life!Reply

From Apple's website, when adding the iPad 2 16GB to your cart, the part number MC954LL/A is used. Is it safe to say when looking for a new one, to only look for MC954LL/A as that will have the 32nm chip?Reply

Hi,If anyone is after the iPad 2,4 please read the following.If you're in the US, look for:MC769LL/A, 16gb, Black - Serial prefixes: DMQH, DMPH - both proven to be 2,4MC979LL/A, 16gb, White - Serial prefixes: DMQH, DMPHMC954LL/A, 16gb, Black - new model number, serial prefix not known - proven to be 2,4MC989LL/A, 16gb, White - unproven but as it's the new model number it should be 2,4

Please note that the Australian models may possibly have the prefix with H at the end instead of J and vice versa for US.

If you live in Australia I can confirm that the Apple Store in Perth has the DMQJ & DMPJ in stock. I purchased mine from Big W however I had to check with 4 stores before I found a DMPJ.

Battery LifeOkay so now you're wondering if the alleged extended battery life of 11.7 hours makes this worth buying or not.Well, out of the box my iPad 2,4 had a charge of 76% and for the next 2 hours, from setting up, to installing my Apps, to surfing the net the charge only dropped to 66%. Wow! Then I discovered that Bluetooth was switched on by default the entire time which would have no doubt added to the battery drain, thus I managed 10% battery usage in 2 hours using wifi and with Bluetooth on. Double wow! It has now been 7 hours since I first powered the iPad on and I'm only down to 43%. Bluetooth was turned off when I found it was on, of course. In that 7 hours the iPad wasn't in use for about 30 minutes (had to have a couple of breaks) so actual usage would be 6.5 hours.So depending on how you use the iPad I'm thinking you may get a minimum of 11.7 hours general usage (therefore non gaming or video watching) and possibly a maximum of 20 hours general usage.

Lastly, if at some point down the track you decide to sell the iPad 2,4 (like when the iPad 4 with the Sharp IGZO screen gets released) I'm sure you'll be able to sell it on eBay for a good price.Reply

I can confirm your findings with the white iPad 2,4. I picked one up from Walmart today with a production year of 2012 in the month of June. The part # is MC979LL/A. However my serial prefix doesn't match your findings. My serial prefix is DYTH. I could have used your findings the day before yesteday. I went through four of these before getting ahold of an iPad 2,4. So far it runs great and I'm relieved to get ahold of one. I'll be selling my new iPad on ebay as the quicker charging time and battery life on the ipad 2 is more important to me at the momment. I use my iPad in classes (all day sometimes) to take notes, read course books and I don't always have access to an outlet. I'll be looking forward to the Gen 4 iPad and the iPad 2,4 will suffice for now. Reply

That's awesome Saint04. Glad to hear you found one! I know the feeling of being "relieved" at finding the 2,4. I set myself up to be disappointed when I purchased mine (expected only to have a 2,1) but then of course I was over the moon when Linpack revealed it was a 2,4. :D Thanks very much for letting us know about the DYTH serial number prefix too! I'll pass on this valuable bit of info at other forums.No doubt as the old stock of iPad 2's gets sold off it will become much easier to find the 2,4 and there will be a plethora of serial numbers to look out for. Enjoy your 2,4 Saint04! And if you revisit this site, please let us know roughly what battery life you're getting. Thanks! :)Reply

Hey TechKnow12. The battery life was close to advertised in performance as what anandtech reported in the ipad 2, 4 article. I apologize for the late response, I didn't realize that I had one until I was reading back over the forum. Also, just purchased another ipad 2 with the MC979LL/A part number it too was the new ipad 2,4. Take care, grace and peace. Reply

hi i just wanted to confirm that the serial code DMPH is accurate. I went to micro center in minneapolis and bought an ipad with serial DR, and it was an ipad 2,1. I returned it and purchased one from best buy in richfield. At first he also said they only had ones with the DR serial number but after asking him to check again he came back with a DMPH, the protective plastic was a bit ripped and dirty so maybe it was older stock, but on coming home and powering it on i was very happy to see that it was an ipad 2,4. thanks for all the help guys, especially Technow 12. very happy to have the one with extra battery life. And also when i was in the best buy store I was suprised to realise that there is a significant difference in weight when holding the ipad 2, and ipad 3, i know its meant to be imperceptible but the ipad 2 definitely feels lighter.Reply